


Shades

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Comfort, Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Incest, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-09 09:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13478448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Loki dreams in blue." Loki's nights are monochrome but there's more than one color to his waking life.





	Shades

Loki dreams in blue.

It’s been that way the whole of his life. His waking days are gold, white and bronze and red and green, with the whole spectrum of Asgard around him; but at night, when the restless distractions of the day have faded to topple him over the edge into unconsciousness, the brighter shades disintegrate, the brilliant colors bleed free of his grasp, and his vision fades out to monochrome, deep navy and silvery pales and blue, everything he looks at cast over like he’s seeing it through some endless haze of water, as if through the eyes of a long-drowned man. He never questioned it when he was younger -- dreams are strange, they obey none of the logic of reality, why should their color be any different? -- but he never mentioned it either, never asked his mother or Thor what they see, when their waking facade gives way to the haze of sleep. He thinks, now, there was more awareness than he realized, some suspicion too filament-thin to lay claim to with all that bright illumination of his waking life around him; but there all the same, a needle at the back of his thoughts enough to pin his tongue to silence, enough to strip his voice of sincerity in this as in so much else. It was just another of those details that became such an avalanche, when he was confronted with the bitter bite of truth; something else to underline the truth of Odin’s words, to strip away the pretty lies and the gentle silences into the ice-cold harshness that has always been in Loki’s veins, no matter how long he stands in Asgard’s sun.

His dreams never lightened. Even knowing what it was lacing his vision to the color of his natural skin, even after lying awake for long hours resisting the insistence of his unconsciousness; still, Loki could never bring any color into his sleeping vision, could never muster so much as a fragment of gold or a scrap of red to flicker through them. It’s as if he gives up his claims to color with his consciousness, as if all the light and brilliance he has learned through his life gives way with the onset of sleep, as surely as Odin’s lies tore through with that one impossible truth; and there’s more there, now, a darkness that Loki can no more resist than he can summon light to his subconscious mind. The shadows he is used to, the haunting weight of nightmares sensed more than seen bearing down on him like his end come early; but after Midgard there is worse, darker and bloodier than his dreams ever were before. His Jotun blood gave him cold, stripped him from the lie of his existence and forced him to harsh reality; but the Chitauri tear into him with fear, ravaging the frosty dreamscape of his mind to scar the territory as surely as they scarred his mind in the grip of the Tesseract that carried him forth as its wielder. The familiar color blinds, in Loki’s mind now; it comes with teeth, with claws and shrieks and demands that pierce through his very soul, that drag freedom from him and leave him shaking in the grasp of something impossible to fight, insane to comprehend. When Loki dreams now it’s of weights, heavy at his wrists and stifling his tongue, pinning him down as a shadowy form reaches towards his face with fingers made of ice. He twists his head away, trying helplessly to protect his eyes from the points of those fang-sharp claws, opening his mouth to shriek for help he can’t hope to win, but the fingers drop to his lips instead, seizing with unbreakable pressure against his tongue as they pull. Loki’s voice breaks in his throat, muffled and wailing protest even as he tries to lift his hands, as he tries to move, but he can’t remember how to move this body -- is this even his body at all? His skin was never this color, his hands were never so clumsy -- and his mouth is filling with blood, dark and bitter as bile, spilling to stifle his screams, to choke him to silence, to rush down his throat and fill his lungs with poisonous cold as he--  
“ _Loki!_ ”

Loki’s hand moves, his arm spasms; when he gasps a breath it catches raw at the back of his throat and chokes him to silence. Everything is black, his eyes are open but he can’t see, he’s trapped and he can’t break free, he has to--

“Loki.” Loki’s fist hits something solid, something warm; there’s the sound of a breath giving way from lungs not-his, a grunt of reaction in direct answer to the blow. “ _Ow_.”

“Get off me,” Loki spits, and is surprised to find his tongue still his, surprised to hear the sound of his voice, raw and desperate but recognizable all the same. “Get away from me, go away.”

“That hardly seems fair.” The voice is familiar, it carries some dark, warm weight that Loki can feel down in the pit of his stomach, can feel pressing to the back of his head; something in him eases, some forgotten nostalgia connecting to instinct to strip away the first wave of panicked action from him. He goes still, his heart still racing and his breath still ragged, and he tries to take stock of where he is. “Seeing as  _you’re_  the one who came into my quarters.”

Loki blinks hard. It’s still dark, his eyes are protesting the lack of light with night-hazed outlines of his surroundings; but details are coming into clarity, fragments of his situation orienting themselves around him. It’s not shackles on his feet but blankets, the weight of them tangled around his legs into some accidental knot; he’s not in some frozen wasteland but in a bed, lying on his side across the give of soft sheets beneath him. And it’s not an enemy before him, not a nightmare master pinning his wrists down but broad shoulders, hands outstretched in offer instead of restraint, and that voice:

“Thor,” Loki rasps.

“Yeah.” There’s a flash of white teeth, a huff of a laugh that Loki can feel rumble through the whole of his body like the thunder the other wields so casually. “I hope you weren’t expecting someone else.”

Loki jerks his head. It’s a rejection, in part, or at least that’s what it’s intended as, but the motion draws him away from Thor’s hold on his shoulders too to leave him alone on the other side of the bed. Thor’s easy smile fades, Loki can see it giving way even in the dim lighting around them; Loki ducks his head, setting his jaw tight to brace against the catch of his breathing as he takes a deliberately careful inhale through his nose. He manages a full breath, even if it skims shallow in his chest and strains at his lips; before him Thor clears his throat and withdraws his hand from where he was reaching out for the other’s arm.

“If you intend to stab me again I’d appreciate you waiting until the morning,” he says, his tone warm with gentle teasing. “Or at least letting me know before you began the assault.”

“It’s your own mistake,” Loki manages without lifting his head to meet Thor’s gaze. “I thought you learned your lesson the last time you made the mistake of trusting me.”

“And yet I continue to do so,” Thor says. “I am more of a fool than a king, it would seem.”

Loki huffs a laugh in spite of himself. “You must be the greatest of the former, then.”

There’s a pause. Loki’s heartbeat is slowing, even if he can still feel his hands trembling where he’s drawn them up against his chest; the fever sweat that radiated from him when he woke is cooling, chilling him as if with the rime of daybreak frost. It’s a comfort, for once; he’s in no danger of sliding back into sleep like this, and the shivers give him an excuse for the motion he can’t stop in his shoulders and trembling at his lips. He stays very still, staring at the edge of the blankets beneath him without seeing them at all; and then Thor shifts, and the weight of a warm hand settles into Loki’s hair before he can flinch back and away from it. Loki hisses an inhale, the sound shocked out of him in spite of himself, but Thor’s elbow is dipping in around his shoulder, Thor’s arm is bracing against the whole back of his neck, and Loki knows better than to try to struggle against the irresistible force of his brother’s strength.

“Loki,” Thor says. Loki can feel the resonance of his name reverberate against the inside of his own chest, caught to echo back the warm purr of Thor’s voice within the span of his casual strength. “I don’t ask you to tell me of the shadows that plague your rest.” Loki stiffens, his shoulders tensing against Thor’s hold on him; Thor’s fingers tighten, Thor’s arm flexes to brace him tighter.

“I don’t ask the impossible,” Thor says again, with more force on his words this time. “I only ask that you let me be there when you wake from them, brother.”

Loki stares straight ahead for a moment. His eyes are adjusting to the dim light; he can see the texture of Thor’s shirt, now, can trace the seam running against the other’s shoulder with his gaze. His heart is still beating too fast, his jaw is still clenched tight; he doesn’t make any attempt to ease either. He just stares at Thor’s shirt, watching until his eyes begin to blur with what he tells himself is a need to blink, even as his lashes go heavy with damp; and then he squeezes his eyes shut, and ducks his head, and lets himself go slack in Thor’s grip. He can feel the huff of the other’s exhale over his head, can feel the pull of Thor’s hold drawing him in closer against the other’s chest; when Thor gets his other arm around Loki Loki can feel the casual strength of it wrap around him like the bars of a cage, something strong enough, maybe, to keep even his demons at bay. Loki takes a breath past his set teeth, and steels his shoulders; and then he lifts one hand, and reaches out to brace the weight of his shaking fingers just against the dip of Thor’s waist. Thor heaves a sigh, sounding satisfied and deeply content; and Loki keeps his eyes shut, and listens to the sound of Thor’s breathing as it smoothes and slows into the weight of sleep.

It takes him a long time to ease his shoulders, and longer still to give way to the lullaby of exhaustion; but when he dreams, it’s in shades of gold.


End file.
